


God Grant Me a Good Sword

by Cinaed



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Foreshadowing, Gen, Hugolian Coincidence, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/pseuds/Cinaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Feuilly, with a naked sword in his hand, marched at their head shouting: "Long live Poland!"</i>
</p><p>The story of how Feuilly came to own the sword he was brandishing that day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Grant Me a Good Sword

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Polish proverb: 
> 
> “God grant me a good sword and no use for it.”

The coins were an unaccustomed heaviness in his pocket. Feuilly found that he touched them from time to time as though to reassure himself that they were real. He was full of good humor despite his suspicion that Joly and Courfeyrac had, between the two of them and through some sleight of hand Feuilly somehow missed, conspired to let him win the game of cards.

Still, there was much he could do with the money now in his pocket. He considered his options. He had already spent some of it on a good meal and some wine for his friends, but as for the rest.... His steps slowed as he thought. In his contemplation, his gaze happened upon an officer making his rounds. Feuilly watched him raise his cane towards a beggar who had approached with outstretched hands. The woman scuttled quickly backwards, muttering apologies, her arms rising to shield her face.

"Madame," said Feuilly, pressing a few of the coins into her hands once the officer had passed.

The woman, her hands cupped protectively around the money, wore a look of bleak misery and despair upon her face. She parted her lips as though to thank him, and said nothing. Instead she only looked down at the coins in her hands in mute incomprehension, as though she too thought they would dissolve into thin air in a moment.   

Feuilly, who had begun to return to the matter of what could be done with the rest of the money, paused. He took in the woman's thin shawl, which was in truth so patched and worn that it seemed likely to fall to pieces before his very eyes, if not in the next few weeks. It was June, but even summer nights were often cold, and soon enough it would be fall and colder still.

He glanced down the street, spotting the shop of a clothes-dealer. "If you will wait here a moment, madame," he said to her, and waited for her small nod of acknowledgement before he went into the shop.

"How many I help you?" the clothes-dealer asked. His face was pinched in a frown, his expression suspicious as he took in Feuilly's patched workman's shirt and trousers, and old cap that had once been dark brown but now was a faded shade Grantaire had once likened to dried mud.

"Do you have any shawls? Ones that will last." As the man had left off the polite monsieur, Feuilly followed suit, and watched the man's expression darken. He did not press his luck further, for the man seemed ready to kick him from the shop, and made a show of pulling out his purse.

The promising clink of coin eased some of the misgivings in the clothes-dealer's face. "I will see what we have," he said, adding a somewhat grudging, "monsieur," before he disappeared to the back of the shop.

Feuilly glanced around. His gaze caught upon an unsheathed sword left leaning against the nearby wall as though it were an umbrella instead of a weapon. Judging by the thick layer of dust, the sword had been overlooked by customers and forgotten by the clothes-dealer. He stepped closer, curiosity pricking him.

The sword was a comfortable weight, with a good balance he thought, though in truth Feuilly had had few occasions to wield a sword and could only guess. He held it up, his frowning reflection wavering back at him from the bright steel.

"I made a mistake in buying that, monsieur," said the clothes-dealer with a snort, coming to stand next to him with an armful of shawls. "I had thought it would make a memento of some old veteran or some lover of Bonaparte, for I was told it belonged to a soldier who had had his name a time or two in the Moniteur during the wars. But I have never found a buyer."

Feuilly started to lower the sword, and then paused, feeling the pleasing weight of it in his grip. "How much?" he asked, surprising himself and the clothes-dealer as well, judging by the man's sudden intent look. At the named price, which would empty his purse substantially, Feuilly frowned and shook his head. He could not spend that much on a whim. 

The clothes-dealer, seeing that he was about to lose a sale, said hastily, "Ah, but I had forgotten that you also plan to purchase one of these shawls, monsieur. That changes matters. Perhaps a deal could be made--" 

A few minutes and his purse a trifle lighter, Feuilly had two shawls and a sword. He wrapped the one shawl around the sword, and gave the other to the woman, who accepted it with a murmured thanks, some of the mute misery replaced by astonished gratitude. 

He started for his apartment. The streets were quiet this evening, but Feuilly still fancied that he could feel the tension in the air. All across the city were his fellow men and women, readying themselves for the future in which all would be equal. The coins clinked in his purse as he turned the corner of the boulevard; Feuilly smiled at the sound. He would save the money, he thought, and give it to Enjolras tomorrow for the purchase of more bullets. 

"Well," he said in a cheerful undertone to the sword beneath his arm, "you shed blood in the name of a tyrant, if the clothes-dealer spoke truthfully. That is all right. I will use you for a better purpose soon enough."

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, it is heavily implied in this, but I mostly wrote this fic so that Feuilly could purchase Georges Pontmercy's sword...because I have way too many Feuilly and Georges Pontmercy feelings.


End file.
